co-sleeping conundrum

So it's no secret that Ellie spends her night right in the middle of Mike and I and has since birth. To our credit, she does go to sleep initially in her crib, which is in our room. Then around 10 or 11 or whenever she wakes up I scoop her up and bring her to bed with me. This is just how we've done it.

I have friends that tell me that their children sleep through the night, and I always feel that little pinch of jealousy because folks, I can honestly say I have not slept more than 4 hours at a time since Ellie has been born. Almost 6 months. We do have a room for her, but it's at the other side of the house. Our plan was to move her back there this weekend, but conveniently, it was inconvenient, so we put it off. We continue to put it off and I'm pretty sure I know why. We'll miss her.

And so here begins just a taster of a life where I'm going to have to learn to let go. I have a new found respect for all moms who let their children learn to drive, who drop them off at the mall, who drop them off to their first day of school. I can't be there with her, and that's wierd to acknowledge. Right now I feel like I would rearrange my entire life to spend every possible moment with her. And fortunately she seems to be equally in to me as I am into her. But that will change.

Being a mom is hard. Loving like this is hard. You have to let go. You have to trust the process. You have to let her learn things for herself. You have to share.

Sigh.

And so perhaps one of these days I will write about how my little daughter got her own room, and maybe one day we'll reach the holy grail...an entire night of sleeping. In the meantime, this sleep deprived, coffee worshipping mama continues to truck on, learning about how to be a parent.

The beauty of maternity leave

Today I woke up at 10:30.
I won't lie to you, I'm conditioned to see a number like that flashing on the clock and feel an immediate sense of panic. OMG, surely I've slept through something and in the very least I've missed what could have been the most important portion of the day. But then I remind myself of the difficulty baby had sleeping last night, how much of the night was spent "sleeping" on the couch because the only thing to make baby stop crying was her swing. So lucky me really. I got to sleep in.

Typically sleeping isn't terrible since we started co-sleeping. Once baby starts stirring in the middle of the night, I just turn her and put a boob in her mouth and she goes right back to sleep. This makes the whole procedure relatively easy, as I am able to sleep (well relax) while she nurses. This is a far cry from the days where nursing meant sitting straight up, getting the boppy, making a boob sandwich with one hand while holding my baby with the other, making it such a fiasco of a process that undoubtedly baby would wake up and we'd have to start nighttime all over again. Yes, we've come far.

Which reminds me, does anyone else's baby GRUNT as much as mine does? Her middle of the night wakeups now have become one big gruntfest, so bad that I've actually caught my husband covering his ears up with a pillow! If her grunting is any indicator of how much she will talk, then we've got ourselves quite a little talky talkerson on our hands.

While getting up at 1030 is all well and good, I have to remind myself that I go back to work on August 3rd. That was deliciously far away for so long, but sadly, it's not so anymore. Sure it will be nice to make money and to do things that are outside of the role of "mommy". But the idea of missing portions of her life is heartbreaking to me. Fortunately I'm only going back half time. But going back to work reminds me that I really must start thinking of a sleep schedule. Or at least attempting to initiate one. At some point. Sleeping in until 1030 doesn't fly so well when you have sick patients that need you.

Anyway, look at the time. It's almost noon. I suppose I ought to start the day.